Reviewing Samsung’s “Essential” SDHC memory card

Today, I am reviewing a Samsung memory card, sent to me by Memory Card Zoo.

Samsung claim its line of Essential Micro SDHC cards are resilient against water and dust. Not only that, but it also says they are safe from shocks, magnetic fields and X-Rays! Memory Card Zoo sent the 8GB model for me to review, which would set you back a mere £10.79 with free delivery.

Well, I don’t have electromagnets or X-Ray machines to hand, but I do have an abundant supply of water. So I gave this memory card a bath in warm water, and found that it kept on working!

Samsung's "Essential" Micro SDHC, Class 6 8GB card with SD adapter

Before the soaking, I put it through a 21 hour continuous write test, via the USB reader shown below. The card sustained an average write speed of just over 4MB/s. This is lower than it should have been, for a class 6 card. The USB reader used for this test was an INOV8 adapter, which fits every memory card format I’ve come across! That was also sent to me from Memory Card Zoo, who sell it for £6.95.

INOV8 Multi-format memory card reader from Memory Card Zoo

I usually find that Micro SDHC cards get too hot to touch during extended write periods. However, this one dissipated its heat quite well, and only became slightly warm to touch during writing.

The memory card submerged in water!

As mentioned above, I dropped the Essential memory card into some warm water and left it there for 10 minutes. I didn’t think there was room for pockets of gas in a Micro SDHC card, but I saw an air bubble escape as it went down. After being careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water, I gave it a quick dry and continued with another write speed test.

It survived the soaking

For the last test, I decided to use the memory card slot in my laptop, using the SD card adapter which Samsung supply. This time, the Samsung Essential Micro SDHC card sustained a write speed of 10MB/s, far better than before. Even more impressive, considering that it had just been submerged in water! Presumably, the memory card slot is connected to the main data bus of my laptop, rather than being an internal USB device.

Write speed test results

We might take such speeds for granted these days, but it’s worth comparing them to the types of memory card we used to use, that are now mostly obsolete. For example, an Olympus 2GB XD card, which Memory Card Zoo sell for £10.99, can only write at 774KB/s!